On Monday morning's CNBC Squawk Box, Wisconsin Senator Ron Johnson complained that our federal government spends 25% of our GDP today and that 100 years ago it was 2% -- evidence, he said, that we have a spending problem in Washington.
This is a typical Republican talking point on these chit chat shows and underlies how incredibly deceitful the GOP has become in waging its war against common sense and compromise.
I might quibble a bit with the numbers. Federal spending has apparently kissed 25% of GDP this year. But, that total is a short-term blip and is projected to come down to a more normal rate of around 22% - 23% over the next couple of years.
But, setting this technical point aside, let's face facts.
First, yes, it's true, even at 22% - 23% of GDP, the federal government does spend a lot of money if you compare it to the 100-year average, which is about 16.5%.
But, that is almost entirely because of policies that were put in place during the 1980s. Since Ronald Reagan's inauguration in 1981, federal spending has averaged 20.75% of GDP.
But even that figure masks the actual cost of Republican policies. If you isolate just the Reagan-Bush I years, for instance, federal government spending averaged 21.85% of GDP, 5.35% more than our 100-year average. You don't often hear GOP talking heads mention that inconvenient fact.
During the Clinton years, federal spending as a percentage of GDP dropped every single year:
1993: 21.14%
1994: 20.63%
1995: 20.44%
1996: 19.91%
1997: 19.22%
1998: 18.79%
1999: 18.2%
2000: 17.98%
This trend completely reversed itself the moment Bush II was selected:
2001: 18.11%
2002: 18.9%
2003: 19.39%
2004: 19.32%
2005: 19.56%
2006: 19.82%
2007: 19.38%
2008: 20.65%
Over the last couple of years, federal spending as a percentage of GDP has indeed surged. But that has little to do with so-called reckless spending in Washington and has even less to do with Obama specifically.
Yes, Obama and the Democrats pushed through a stimulus bill in early 2009 of $787 billion. Of course, more than a third of that package wasn't spending at all -- $288 billion went out in the form of tax breaks.
Much of the rest of the package went directly to the states to help rescue depleted state budgets. Indeed, only about $85 billion of the stimulus package actually went to things like infrastructure and new energy programs and transportation.
Given the economic crisis the country was facing and continues to face, $85 billion in capital projects and investments seems like chump change. And, given the weakness of the recovery, it appears it was woefully insufficient to get the economy back on its feet.
But, even if you ignore these finer points and round up to $1 trillion stimulus bill, which Republicans almost always do on the chit chat shows, this is a tiny fraction (about 3%) of the $30 trillion two-year GDP of the U.S. And it's nearly totally run out -- meaning long-term it has a negligible impact on our overall deficit problem and has no impact on our long-term federal spending levels.
To top it off, the stimulus bill is the only program even worth mentioning when it comes to our overall economy and federal budget. There have been a few increases here and there, but overall there have been no net increases in spending added to the books since Obama was sworn in.
Indeed, Obama has already committed the federal government to significant cuts in programs. For example, the stimulus bill is more than offset by the Obama-ordered freeze in non-defense discretionary spending over the next ten years, which will reduce spending in that budget category from 3.4% of GDP to less than 2%.
But, the big GOP spending lie gets even more insidious when you look closer at the numbers. Even if you take into account all spending relative to GDP, including defense and mandatory programs like Social Security and Medicare, total federal spending on these programs as a percent of GDP actually comes down over the next 10 years -- from 23.9% of GDP in 2011 to 19.7% in 2021.
What does go up is the interest on the debt, which increases from 1.4% this year to 3.4% in 2021. All of the spending savings we achieve under President Obama's budget proposals are eaten up on interest payments -- one major reason progressives should be concerned about deficits.
And of course none of this has anything to do with federal revenue, which has been wiped out from 20.35% of GDP in 2000 to 14.41% today.
So while President Obama has already begun to put federal spending back under control, the overall budget will be weighed down by the growing interest payments and soaring deficits caused principally by collapsing revenue and Bush II policies that we are still working ourselves out of -- wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, unfunded prescription drug bill under Medicare, and those stinking tax cuts.
But don't expect a Republican to be at all honest about any of this. Truth-telling is not what wins them their primaries and political courage is a liberal conspiracy.